Recharging The Escape Bubble
September 2nd, 2010
When you become trapped under a pile of items in The Incident, it is possible to shake the device to activate an escape bubble. The escape bubble floats you to the top of the pile and releases you.
We came up with the idea of the escape bubble when we discovered how frustrating it can be to become stuck under the pile. It’s just not fun. We did consider the possibility that people might try to deliberately trap themselves and use the escape bubble to get a free ride to the top but we thought that we could counteract this behavior by releasing a curse balloon whenever the player became trapped. This would force them to escape are soon as possible. It helped, but it wasn’t perfect. It was still possible to play chicken with the balloon; waiting until the last possible second and then shaking the device to escape.
So for The Incident 1.2, we’re making it that the escape bubble needs to be recharged after usage.
We’re still fine tuning details like how long the recharge should take, where the gauge should be positioned on the screen and so on, but this is the basic idea.
No more free rides. You guys are too smart, now I will never be able to pass the game. Death by Stuck at 50m!
Please consider an endless mode
Well beat the game with bubbling strategy. Now it’s harder to use that.
But I admit if I don’t use bubblin I can’t beat the game at later level ( atmosphere or smthing like that ).
And really can you guys make object feel more like real physic ? I think iP4 is capable of that. Like having weight and falling side ( like a pyramid always land on its top ? ) that kind of idea though.
This is a very clever idea. My favorite strategy is to hide beneath the rubble to avoid getting hit from above, so having the escape bubble makes this almost fail safe. In fact I found the later levels got easier with this strategy because the free ride was so much longer.
Now that I’ve completed every level in both regular and ‘b mode’, I need some more challenges. My idea was to have an ‘advanced’ mode where you don’t have escape bubbles at all… beating that would really be something. However, I think your solution is probably more fun for everybody.
Thanks for the awesome game. This and Cogs are the only two iPad games that I find myself returning to over and over. I can’t wait for The Incident 2… I’ll be happy to fork over my money for that!
mustache mode should enable the mustache hair bubble
Thanks! The exploit was previously far too tempting and felt anti-thematic to the game itself. Why risk it when I can hide out and take an armored car to the top.
Actually, I often have the opposite problem. I’m getting trapped and the “shake” icon doesn’t show up (especially when I’m standing at the edge of the screen), or it shows up and I’m desperately shaking the iPod, but it doesn’t register, and I die.
Making the bubble harder to use treads a fine balance between inconveniencing people who exploit it, and making the game harder for people who play it normally. Why not let people who exploit the bubble do that if they want to? Seems like a valid way of playing the game.
Have you considered just removing the incentive? Like, when rising in the bubble, don’t increase the altitude, and don’t let Frank get any closer to the flags. Just a thought.
I like Shane’s idea the best. Bubbling always felt like a cheap trick, and now it’s a bit harder to use, but from the video it seems recharge time is pretty quick. We’ll still feel safe about getting buried by falling stuff if we notice our bubble charge is good.
The only way to reach high altitude should be by climbing stuff.
Yeah, I totally use that trick. I better get to work and beat the last level already before you Nerf my strategy.
Why not just make it optional to even have the bubble? Just switch it in the options menu. Easy, Medium or Hard difficulty.